Breakdowns!

Het naleven van de strip in grafische romans van Spiegelman, Ware en Clowes

Authors

  • Yasco Horsman Leiden University

Abstract

"Breakdowns! The Afterlife of the Comics in Graphical Novels by Spiegelman, Ware and Clowes" discusses the 'afterlife' of emphatically 'trashy' comic imagery in graphic novels by Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes. Taking its cue from Art Spiegelman's observation that the graphic novel came into being at the exact moment when the comics have lost their popular appeal, the essay considers the way in which the graphic novel has positioned itself as 'high culture,' without having been capable of liberating itself fully from its trashy past. The essay proposes that the genre's attachment to the past is not a weakness but its main source of creativity.

Author Biography

  • Yasco Horsman, Leiden University

    Yasco Horsman is universitair docent literatuurwetenschap aan de Universiteit Leiden, en auteur van Theaters of Justice: Judging, Staging and Working Through in Arendt, Brecht and Delbo (Stanford University Press, ter perse).

Downloads

Published

2026-05-04

Issue

Vol. 23 No. 1 (2010): Graphic Novel

Section

Main Section

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Horsman, Y. (2026). Breakdowns! Het naleven van de strip in grafische romans van Spiegelman, Ware en Clowes. FRAME, Journal of Literary Studies, 23(1), 8-23. https://platform.openjournals.nl/FRAME/article/view/27466